Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Steak and scotch: How Mandy Patinkin, Joshua Malina and other Jews are watching the presidential debate

This debate will cause tsuris — might as well make yourself comfortable

The much hyped and likely only debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is just hours away — and American Jews are ready with Scotch, debate bingo cards and, in the case of actor Mandy Patinkin, kichel.

This is a high-stakes, 90-minute face-off in this compressed election cycle which will help determine the next leader of the free world. It starts at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

We asked some prominent Jewish Americans to share their watch plans with us.

West Wing actor Joshua Malina, who is across the Atlantic preparing to star in the European debut of the stage play What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, had plans to stay up for the debate.

But he got sick.

“I find myself in London, stricken with Covid, this erev debate,” he emailed, using the Hebrew word for “pre.” “So for me the question is more whether I’ll manage to stay up late enough to watch at two in the morning!” (And just in case you’re worried, yes, someone has brought him some soup.)

Israeli-American rapper Nissim Black will also have to skip the debate. He’ll be performing a concert at the State University of New York at Oneonta. He said his expectations for the debate are “low.”

“Hopefully I will have a nice big kosher steak after the concert and I’ll maybe watch the highlights,” he wrote, adding a reminder: As with all politics, “it’s important to remember that everything ultimately is in Hashem’s hands.”

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the leader of J Street, which calls itself the “political home of pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy Americans,” said he’ll be bringing his comfort food to nosh in front of the TV, something salty, like pretzels, “And a stiff whiskey drink (or two.)”

He’ll also be downloading at least two different debate bingo cards, and will watch with whomever in his family “can bear to watch with me.”

Mandy Patinkin, the actor and activist, has the most elaborate debate-watching plans.

He’s got a dream menu: Bubbe Celia’s pletzel, Aunt Lilian’s cinnamon sugar kichel and Philadelphia cream cheese hors d’oeuvres. Plus his mother’s famous tuna burger — the recipe for which, Patinkin helpfully points out, you can find in Doralee’s cookbook, for sale on Amazon.

He and his wife, Kathryn Grody, will be heading over to their son and daughter-in-law’s home in upstate New York. After the grandkids go to bed — the youngest is a mere three weeks old — they’ll head into the living room for the main event.

Also joining them will be Becky, their beloved Great Pyrenees-Labrador Retriever mix. “Becky loves debates!” Patinkin said proudly.

Patinkin traveled to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month where he interviewed as many people as he could and posted videos to his millions of followers across social media.


Asked if they have any debate night rituals, Patinkin suggested a game.

“Husbands and wives should have an agreement,” he said. “Anybody who interrupts the debate will have to clean up the whole house, all the food, all the dishes. We reserve our thoughts and comments for after the debate.”

Grody objected. “I hate games.”


A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version